Sermon Tone Analysis

Pascal and the Poor

Blaise Pascal was an influential French scientist who lived in the 1600’s.

He was something of a genius.

For example, at the age of twelve, even before he had received any formal training in geomoetry, Pascal independently discovered and demonstrated Euclid’s thirty-two propositions.

I don’t even know what Euclid’s thirty two propositions are, let alone demonstrating them!

It’s no surprise then that as an adult Pascal completed important works on mathematics and experimental physics.

He even gave us buses.

Noticing a crowd of people all headed in the same direction to work he came up with the idea of the bus and in 1662 helped form the very first bus company.

Pascal was also a devoted Christian.

He wrote books on grace and the life of Christ as well as other Christian works.

Through all this Pascal realised that his faith, though intensely personal, could not be merely individualistic.

His love for God drove him to love for the poor.

“I love poverty” he said, “because he (Christ) loved it.

I like wealth because it gives a means to assist the needy.”

Increasingly Pascal deprived himself so that he could give more.

He sold his coach and horses, his fine furniture and silverware and even his library in order to give to the poor.

When he received an advance of 1000 francs for his bus he sent the money to the poor in Blois, who had suffered from a bitter winter.

He then signed over his interest in the company to the hospitals of Paris and Clermont.

When Pascal died at the age of 39 on August 19, 1662 his funeral was attended by family, friends, scientific colleagues, worldly companions, converts, writers, and the back of the church was filled with the poor, each and every person there someone Pascal had helped during his life.

Source: reported in Charles Kummel, The Galileo Connection (IVP, 1986)

Today is the final message in our short, two-part series on Generosity.

Last week, we heard from Pastor Jay as he brought to our attention the fact that God’s blessings to us flow through our obedience in being generous with what He has given us.

Today, I want to focus on our motive for giving and being generous.

You see, its easy for God’s blessing, which can occur through our generosity, to become our motive for being generous.

But a mere temporal benefit is not a right biblical motive.

Yes, God sometimes blesses us when we bless others.

And yes, we are blessed by God so that we can bless others.

But what is our right motive for such generosity?

When we strip all the goodies and temporal blessings away, what is our right motive?

That’s what we are going to discover here today.

We are going to examine this in three parts, and each part will be centered around a different portion of Scripture.

And at the end of our time in the Word, we will celebrate communion together and bring all that we’ve talked about and read full circle.

So let’s get started.

Pray.

In this narrative, Samuel is in the middle of rebuking Saul, who was the King of Israel at the time, for disobeying God’s direct orders.

Saul was supposed to take his army and destroy the Amalekites, every living thing among them.

However, while Saul’s army did defeat the Amalekites, he did not kill every living thing.

He saved the best stuff for himself and his army.

Saul tried to offer the LORD an animal sacrifice using the best of the animals that they took from the Amalekites.

But this is not what God wanted.

God did not want a sacrifice.

He wanted obedience.

Samuel, in these words, tells Saul and us that sacrifices are to be offered on God’s terms, not ours, and that Saul’s disobedience, even though he meant well, was a flagrant violation of God’s will.

Trying to edit or embellish God’s commands does not impress Him, and is not obedient.

What are some examples in Scripture that you can think of of people editing, altering, or embellishing God’s commands?

Off the top of my head, in addition to this one, I can think of two:

Eve.

She added to God’s command not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge when she said that God said that they could not even touch the tree.

God did not say they couldn’t touch the tree.

He said they couldn’t eat from the tree.

Why is that important?

Because Eve, having been tempted by Satan when he said that God was holding out on them, saw that the fruit was appealing, and added to God’s words by saying that He said they couldn’t touch the tree.

Her embellishment gave standing to the temptation that faced her, and she and Adam fell to that temptation.

2. Ananias and Sapphira.

These two are found in , and they don’t even have a command to give.

They were a part of the early church.

And the believers of the early church were known to sell their possessions and donate the proceeds to the church so that there might no need among the believers.

Now, there was no specific command for the believers to do this, other than they were obeying God’s primary command to love one another.

So, Ananias and Sapphira, wanting to appear obedient, sold part of their possessions, brought the money to the church, but told the church that they sold everything.

Upon doing so, both Ananias and Sapphira died instantly.

They just dropped dead.

And for what?

They didn’t have to give anything.

But they wanted to look good.

They wanted to impress everyone.

So they embellished.

The right motive for generosity is obedience.

Right where you sit, right now, ask God to show you if your generosity is coming from obedience, or from a desire to impress Him, someone else, or even yourself.

This is Jesus speaking and he is not so much dealing with specific acts of righteousness or generosity as much as He is addressing the motives behind one’s generosity.

Here are three truths we can learn from this:

To attempt to live in accordance with biblical righteousness/generosity out of a motive eager for the applause/recognition of people is to prostitute that righteousness/generosity.

In other words, when we give just to feel good, we are selling our generosity to the nearest bidder.

And the word prostitute is not used there flippantly or just to get your attention.

That’s really what the passage is saying.

A prostitute, as we understand, is someone who sells their bodies, usually sexually for money or other kinds of favors.

Now, we know that because we are creations of God, that we have intrinsic and eternal value because were given such immense value by our Creator.

And what Jesus is saying here is that not only do you matter, but the reason why you do the things that you do matter as well.

So don’t sell yourself, or your actions, to the nearest bidder, because you matter far too much to have anyone pay anything for you, or any aspect of you, other than what Christ has already paid.

Don’t believe the lie that you need earthly approval in order to have immense and terrific value.

You matter so much, and you are so valuable.

2. Our generous and righteous conduct must be visible so that God may be glorified, but it must never be visible in order to win earthly acclaim.

As your pastor, I hope to be able to lead us on an amazing and fantastic journey of generosity and love in Jesus’ Name to the people of the city of Bristol.

But you know what?

If Hollywood ever made a movie about what we’re about to do, when the credits rolled, I sincerely pray that God’s name is the only one that people see.

I don’t want anybody in this city to be able to explain the blessings and generosity and love that they receive from us in any way other than God.

We’ve talked about this before.

What do we want Valley Bristol to be known for?

I always find it interesting when churches brag about their ministry programs more than they glorify God.

We’ve got great music!

Really?

Because unless Paul McCartney and Smokey Robinson are your music leaders, I’m going to have to disagree.

We’ve got relevant preaching!

What does that even mean?

You know what’s relevant to me right now? I’m hoping that my Seahawks are going to defeat the Rams.

I’m not confident about that at all.

But that’s what’s relevant to me right now.

And when churches do this, do you know what they are doing?

They are taking their offerings, and offering them to the nearest bidder.

Why?

Because they are hoping that by advertising all that stuff, that people will come and fill their auditoriums and halls.